The Abuja division of the Federal High Court has fixed April 8, for ruling on a preliminary objection filed by the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, challenging the validity of the 15-count amended charge preferred against him by the Federal Government.
Justice Binta Nyako fixed the date after the lead defence counsel to Kanu, Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, and the prosecution counsel, Shuaibu Labaran, had adopted arguments for and against the defendant’s preliminary objection.
Ozekhome specifically pleaded with the court to acquit and dismiss all the charges filed against Kanu by the Federal Government.
At a resumed trial on Wednesday, Ozekhome argued that the 15-count amended charge was ‘defective and baseless.’
Specifically, Ozekhome informed the court that his application seeks the ‘quashing, striking out and dismissing of the 15-count amended charge” against Kanu for being “incompetent and denying the court of jurisdiction’ to entertain the charge.
The application, with 34 grounds, and supported by a 36-paragraph affidavit, Ozekhome said, also seeks for an order acquitting and discharging Kanu for want of jurisdiction and defective, baseless and incompetent charges.
Ozekhome adopted his application and asked the court to quash, strikeout and dismiss the entire charges.
He asked the court to look at the entire grounds and affidavit, from paragraphs 5 to 36, of notice of preliminary objection, etc.
‘The defendant was unlawfully and renditionally brought to Nigeria against his will and in flagrant violation of international protocol on extradition.’
However, the prosecution counsel has asked the court to discountenance Kanu’s objection and proceed to order him to enter a defence.
‘We wish to state emphatically and particularly in paragraphs 7, 8, 9, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30 of the affidavit in support of the motion as going into the substance of the case yet to be heard,’ Labaran said.
Meanwhile, the Director of Legal, DSS told the court that family members of Kanu brought a cloth with a lion’s heart, which ‘offends our standard operating procedures.’
The DSS was responding to the court’s question on why Kanu still wore his white Fendi designer clothes to court.
Ozekhome had complained that despite the court’s order, the DSS had refused Kanu to change clothes.
However, Justice Nyako asked the defendant; “Mr Kanu, what type of cloth do you want to wear?
‘I want to wear the clothes of my people, “Isi Agu”, Kanu replied. Responding swiftly, the judge said ‘that kind of cloth cannot be worn in my court.’ (The Sun)
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